Good leaders know that asking questions is an important ingredient in leadership. Even when you think you have a good grasp on a situation, asking questions can allow others to provide additional insights that you may not have otherwise.
Also, great leaders know that asking the right questions is a powerful way to seek new ideas, overcome blind spots and secure the buy-in of their teams members. So, much more important than asking questions is knowing the right questions to ask
Consider this dialogue between a married couple who seemed to have a broken garage door keypad.
Wife: Did you reprogram the garage door opener?
Husband: (hesitates before responding) Don't worry about it. The garage door is working fine now.
Wife: But did you reprogram it?
Husband: (hesitates again while thinking "the issue is not with the reprogramming", but then responded with) Reprogramming it is not the problem and as I said before, it's working now.
Wife: How can it be working if it has not been reprogrammed? Our son was locked out late when he was visiting and couldn't get in through the door.
Husband: But that was three weeks ago. I've fixed the issue since that time.
Wife: (her voice rising) It doesn't matter how long it was, how is it fixed if you didn't reprogram it?! Why can't you just answer the question of whether or not you have reprogrammed it!
Husband: (now getting frustrated) Because it doesn't need reprogramming. The keypad just needed a new battery and I replaced it.
Wife: (her voice rising even higher) Why then can't you answer the question of whether you reprogrammed the door or not?!
At this stage, the husband kept quiet while thinking to himself, "Why are you so much fixated on a response to that question when it's the wrong question to ask in this situation?"
To him, the goal of the question was to find out if the door was working. He thought that the correct response to the question of "did you reprogram the garage door opener" was "no, I didn't reprogrammed it". But that does nothing to communicate the fact that the problem with the door was now fixed.
This exchange highlights how asking the wrong question and insisting on getting a response to that question can lead to misunderstandings, arguments, and disagreements. So, what are the right questions to ask?
I believe asking open-ended questions are best.
Close-ended questions (requiring "Yes/No", "True/False", "Right/Wrong" responses) are laced with the assumption that what the question assumes is the right course of action. What happens if getting either response from these set of binary choices does nothing to provide clarity to the situation?
As someone who was recently told by a person close to me that I sometimes ask questions that are laced with assumptions (especially in personal situations), I'm trying to do a better job of thinking through the questions I ask. I want to ask questions that will trigger the thought processes of the respondent and which ensures that I get to the goal of the question as quickly as possible.
What about you? What kind of questions do you ask, if any?